Lower Monthly Sub Costs

[Skorpionss]

Firstly, there is no direct correlation between monthly subscription cost and customer service. Blizz has a $15/month fee and takes a while to address customer tickets, while Trion has the same fee but addresses tickets much faster. SOE in its peak days of EQ (same $15/month), would have in game GMs come and talk to you and made a presence of themselves at the site of the issue to evaluate it themselves (and they did this quickly too).

And for your second point: They have not adapted to a higher cost of maintaining the corporation. That's just silly. They have upgraded their servers only a handful of times (once I can remember back in late vanilla/bc). Have they updated graphics? Nope. Have they really done much other than fatten their wallets to obscene amounts? Yup. Blizz also has a reputation of treating its employees pretty poorly. With this massive amount of money flowing in, they could easily take care of that reputation as well.

Yes bcoz Rift totally has 10million players constantly spamming the submit ticket button for every shit reason like some wow players do ...

Also what? Wow hasn't updated graphix? maybe if u always ran the game on low and still run it on low... try turning it all to ultra and then tell me how they haven't upped the graphics...


Also to be on topic: I also am puzzled at this 15$/month trend... I don't know if they'd get more money from subs by having 10$ or even 5$ fees but I bet the microtransactions would increase in number...

[Deleted]

If you look at their financial reports, They have no option to lower the price.

Blizzard spends an immense amount of money on server infrastructure.

Why you think the blizzard store and additional services are so important to them and they are milking those services?

Yes that's right, because the entire sub money goes into servers, development and wages.

[DeadmanWalking]

You mean maintaining the stockholders..

Maintaining your stockholders is part of maintaining a corporation once you have stockholders. When you are a stockholder you expect a return on your investment, if you had stocks you would agree with stockholders. If you don't maintain stockholders (who are giving you access to capital) then you are surely on the path to bankruptcy.

---------- Post added 2012-06-15 at 08:18 PM ----------

If you look at their financial reports, They have no option to lower the price.

Blizzard spends an immense amount of money on server infrastructure.

Why you think the blizzard store and additional services are so important to them and they are milking those services?

Yes that's right, because the entire sub money goes into servers, development and wages.

Have you actually looked at their financial reports or are you just making air quotes for the fun of it?

[Singen]

Extremely successful... When your game has less than 10,000 subscribers because it blows, and you're bleeding money from every orifice... ANY sale of any kind is 'successful'

There are some very large companies who are having huge success with micro transactions...

I think the sub price should be at least lowered. I don't think we'll see this game without a monthly cost for a little while longer (until they start introducing micro transactions and an rmah).

[DeadmanWalking]

Also what? Wow hasn't updated graphix? maybe if u always ran the game on low and still run it on low... try turning it all to ultra and then tell me how they haven't upped the graphics...

Just look at Vanilla models and then look at cataclysm models, look at the turnup fingered undead and the clawed worgen, or the Goblin and the Gnome. There is graphic content upgrades that are very easy to recognise.

[flarecde]

I'm honestly surprised subscription prices haven't gone up. I know my general costs of living and just about everything else have increased dramatically in the last couple years. I wonder if maybe the strict adherence to the 15$ price point isn't what is killing or crippling the MMORPGs that don't "beat WoW."

[Edge-]

I'm honestly surprised subscription prices haven't gone up.

A lot of the other costs associated with running a MMO have dropped over the years so while I don't know exact numbers, I wouldn't be surprised at all if it has counteracted inflation.

[Deleted]

As far as I know a Blizzard official said that they could easily maintain the game with expansion sales alone.

[Jewster925]

As far as I know a Blizzard official said that they could easily maintain the game with expansion sales alone.

Some years ago I was on a plane and I was sitting next to the lead designer of STALKER (he was flying back from visiting Ukraine to get an idea of how to design the game). He saw me watching some WoW videos to pass the time of the flight and he leaned over to me and said "You know, it costs almost nothing to maintain that game?" and we chatted the rest of the 5 hr flight about games of various titles/genres.

So yeah, I'd believe this claim.

[Oerba Yun Fang]

LOTRO VIP subscription is $9.99 a month. I like it. I wish more games would do it.

[Deleted]

Honestly, a lot of new games would make much better if they started off with subscription fee of like 5€/month. Personally I don't even want to start playing a new MMO that costs 60€ at launch and then 15€ recurring every month whether you play it or not. If they'd need more financing they could add a cosmetic cash shop that'd give you cool costumes or pink unicorns. Big bunch of people start these MMO's then after a month they start thinking do I really want to pay 15€ for another month? WoW already has so many subscribers I don't see them lowering the price (at least until someone else comes off with lower price and people start swapping games).

[Deleted]

I'd probably play if the cost per month was maybe halved.

Right now i don't find WoW to be worth £9 a month. So i'll play games more worthy of my money.

[Saeran]

£8.99 month imo is good value. It hasn't gone up since launch and when I think of the hours and hours of enjoyment I get from the game, there isn't a single other thing that compares.

I mean you spend more going to see just one movie that probably sucks anyway...

[mitbrandir]

If WoW suddenly dropped its MRC's to $8.99 or even lower, do you think it would see an increase in subscribers or would it stay the same?

No. Certainly not. The reason alot of ppl left is because they were bored. Only a minor part of the quitter spend their monthly pocketmoney to wow , i guess.

[ara]

Yes that's right, because the entire sub money goes into servers, development and wages.

I'd love to see a source on that

[Deleted]

The price is fine.
Honestly, you name me 1 other past time, that cost money and gives as high a return of enjoyment for the same amount.
Going out to the movies, including drinks, food, travel and tickets, say £30 per person
Having a night out with friends say £20 - £30
Going the football match, With travel, food, say minimum of £50

Lets assume that all of the above are for 3 hours entertainment.
that works out at an average of £12 an hour.

Wow = £8.99 a month.
Average of 720 hours in a month (30x24) Total cost 0.012 per hour (8.99 / 720)

Sticking with the 3 hours entertainment as about.
0.012 x 3 = 3.6 pence
That's right, 3 hours wow time cost's you 3.6 Pence (sterling)

Can you find me ANY sort of enjoyable activity which cost money at that rate ? Can you ?
I find that the current price structure of the game is perfectly balanced, £8.99 a month for unlimited (except for sleeping and server downtime) entertainment is exceptionally good value. also considering that this has been the price since the release of the game, and prices on everything else have gone up during that time, I think blizzard have done the right thing by not increasing the game time costs but over the years frozen and thus lowering them compared to what they would have been had they gone up in price like everything else.

[Jeina]

LOTRO VIP subscription is $9.99 a month. I like it. I wish more games would do it.

That's because you pay 3 months at a time. Blizzard's monthly fee is cheaper if you pay for more months at a time, as well.